The 20 Best Entertainment Heroes Of All-Time

That sounded like fun to me, so I decided to come up with my own top 20. Do keep in mind that a list like this is, by its very nature, very arbitrary and I was content to pick my personal favorites for the list, as opposed to trying to come up with some sort of objective standard that would force me to include lots of heroes who never did much for me (Superman, Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter, etc.).

20) Angel from Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy’s tortured, sometimes evil, sometimes good love interest and leader of his own supernatural detective agency.

19) Eric Draven from the Crow: They murdered him and his girlfriend and he came back from the dead to kill them all.

18) Riddick: He was an extremely capable anti-hero with a bad attitude and a penchant for knives.

17) Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer: He started the show evil, became a pathetic loser, Buffy’s love interest, fell out with Buffy, got his soul back, and kept up his wise cracking, chaos-loving persona all the way through.

16) Spock: Kirk’s logical, impossibly intelligent Vulcan neck pinching #2 was the 2nd best Star Trek character of all time.

15) Xena: The nearly unstoppable “Warrior princess” who traveled the land trying to make up for her evil past with her gal pal & potential love interest Gabriel.

14) The Man With No Name: Clint Eastwood’s impossibly fast, cold blooded killer who always seemed to be dispatching other bad guys who needed killing.

13) Duncan McCloud from The Highlander: Of course, the idea of living forever and having hundreds of years of history to look back on is pretty neat, but the character had a certain sense of style, dignity, and sense of right and wrong that was appealing.

12) Ash from Evil Dead: The decisive, cheesy, wise cracking character who made Bruce Campbell’s career by fighting against the Army of the Dead. Great character!

11) Sam And Dean Winchester from Supernatural: Is it cheating to list both brothers since they act as a team? Well, if it’s wrong, I don’t want to be right. The two of them have great chemistry, stick together, and put a high value on family — plus, they really kill a lot of monsters.

10) Hercules: He was the single most awesome, physically powerful character of Greek myth and although I enjoyed the series featuring Kevin Sorbo, he played the “Big Herc” as less morally ambiguous than he was in mythology.

9) Groo: The single most underrated comic book character of all time in my book. Groo was an unstoppable warrior, whose violence and stupidity caused legendary catastrophes to follow him as surely as night follows day, often to hilarious effect.

8) Rambo: There’s a certain violent, disturbed angst to the guy. He has a gift: killing people who need killing, but he’s not a happy guy who lives a charmed life or someone who’s comfortable with his talent. It makes for an appealing character.

6) Rocky: The ultimate, good natured, plucky underdog who never gives up and wins based on pure heart.

5) Elric: The anti-hero from Michael Moorcock’s legendary series. He was a demonic servant of Chaos, who destroyed evil and killed everyone he ever loved with his own intelligent, soul devouring sword. He was a dark and inspirational character.

4) James T. Kirk: Kirk was the best of the Star Trek captains. Smart, decisive, fiery, combative — and he came across as more of a real military man than the wimpier captains who followed him like Picard and Janeway.

3) Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Powerful, yet vulnerable and all too human. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s character was the centerpiece of what I’d call the best guy’s soap opera of all time.

2) Spider-Man: Peter Parker was the closest thing to a real, likable human being that I’ve ever seen in a comic book — plus, the first two movies were fantastic (The third? Not so much)

1) Conan: Ah-nold was awesome in the movie, but the clever, savage, nearly unstoppable barbarian who played by his own code of honor was better in the Robert Howard books.

John Hawkins's book 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know is filled with lessons that newly minted adults need in order to get the most out of life. Gleaned from a lifetime of trial, error, and writing it down, Hawkins provides advice everyone can benefit from in short, digestible chapters.